Month: October 2016

I posted a couple #throwbackthursday photos on Instagram the other day, that’s the only reason I can think of to explain why this memory reentered my consciousness.

Names have been changed.

One morning when I was in seventh grade, there was an influx of rumors that my friend Stacy got fingerbanged by another notoriously surly girl Agnes at Roller Palace over the weekend. It was seventh grade, Roller Palace was dark as shit and it had an abundance of 1970s plywood booths, so this seemed plausible.

Me, being the socially unaware dipshit that I am, decided to inquire about this the second I had an opportunity, which was at lunch over chicken nuggets and milk in front of a lunch table full of tweens.

Now, to the extreme credit of Stacy, I don’t remember her or anyone else saying a damn thing. I think we just moved on. Justifiably as soon as I booted up AOL at 3PM, I got greeted with an IM from Stacy who was pissed as shit.

Stacy threatened to send me to peer mediation for spreading rumors about her and Agnes.

I would cut a bitch for the chance to relive this experience as a 27 year old. You’re going to call our middle school guidance counselor, and divulge that you may or may not have engaged in lesbian finger banging in a roller rink?

At the time this was the most frightened of anything I had ever been. I thought our peer mediation session would somehow end up on my permanent record. I’d be doomed to spend life begging for change with a cardboard-scrap sign in Chinatown. So I just apologized profusely, probably in chat speak and begged for my freedom.

For years I felt awful about the situation, I blamed myself for spreading a rumor about my friend and for lowering myself to bullying. But mostly I was confused as to how I was tricked into bullying someone, not in the more comprehensible manner of following the crowd, but by a complete lack of understanding of social norms, as well as more than a bit angry I got strong-armed into recanting by a possible roller rink fingerbanger.

While trying to figure out why my emotional response to this memory was injured pride and a desire to fight a twelve year old, I realized:

I NEVER SPREAD A RUMOR ABOUT HER. In fact, I did the OPPOSITE of spread a rumor, which was ask her about it to her face without malice or prejudice. Was it tactless? Yes. But it most certainly wasn’t covert or even mean spirited. It was so much of a non-event to me that someone would be fingerbanged and/or gay I didn’t think twice about inquiring point-blank, and it didn’t even occur to me anyone else would think differently. Granted this is the key skill involved in not being a douchebag, but it is also the key lack of skill involved in being a child. A reported lesbian fingerbanging was somewhat exciting in the same way that the staff opening the “school store” (a storage closet) on Tuesdays and letting us buy pens was exciting, it was a small departure from the everyday. The only parts I questioned were the location and the partner (and 15 years later, I still wonder.)

There is no moral in this. I am more amazed I felt bad for fifteen years for being a bully when I should have felt bad for being dumb as fuck. In another universe there could have been a learning opportunity here, where I realized I could not apply my own beliefs and levels of comfort en masse, to literally everyone around me. But, middle school. It only managed to be an experience full of anxiety and abject confusion that I learned nothing from for a decade and a half.

I was watching NatGeo where I picked up this little elaboration on the mating habits of the praying mantis: not only does the female praying mantis bite the head off the male after sex, she will sometimes do this prematurely so that the male’s death spasms will pump his sperm into her more quickly. She then feasts on his dead, headless body, not wanting to waste the source of nourishment for her eggs.

If you were born a praying mantis not only would this bitch not make you dinner, she has so little time for your shit she will decapitate you so she can use your lifeless body as a turkey baster and then eat it.

Shittiest blog post ever. I went to the gym today and now everything hurts. I did a solid 30 minutes on the stair stepper mostly at the top of my cardio zone which is like, 168, and then tried to push it to the aerobic zone or whatever the f the other zone is at like 173 for a few minutes which of course made me want to vomit almost instaneously and then I had heart cramps even after I cranked that bitch back down because I’m scared of falling off the stair stepper.

And I did some machines and shit. I don’t know. I never feel like I look any different. I have good form. I read stuff about like, macros and I don’t feel like I eat a whole lot, but there’s also f all I like to eat. I like Nandos. I like Panera. I like Diet Coke, weird juice, cheese, just like, pieces of cheese, protein bars, the full fat chocolate Muscle Milk, all baked goods, that’s about it. I can’t alter my diet to eat 3 meals of liver and steamed asparagus a day, I will die.

On top of that my intestines have always been fucked, and I’ve never found out if I have any food allergies, or found any answer beyond “that’s not right” since this healthcare system is stupid. So I could be fat because of that too.

I’m not fat. I’m just frustrated. I feel like I have two modes in my life: in a complete rut, going insane at the unchanginess of things, wondering if they will ever change, terrified that they will not, feeling completely agenciless OR going batshit insane, parlalyzed with fear that things are moving too fast and I have no control over them and everything is complete chaos. Sometimes these feelings are all encompassing, and other times I feel them at the same time towards different parts of my life. Now is one of those times.

I’m mad that I have love handles and a pudgy stomach despite being skinny as fuck generally and eating well at what not. I’m more mad that I have no idea how to change this situation, which could be complicated by a health issue I also can’t get a hold of.

Everything is in chaos because it’s been that way for months, my grandparents house being sold, a medical emergency in the family, people moving here, spending weekends in other places or with other people in my house which I am no longer used to, shit breaking and then having endless people coming in trying to fix it. Trying to figure out whether I’m going to keep taking music lessons when it’s expensive and the administrative side of the business is kind of incompetent and so it’s constant stress just to get their money too them. Blah, not big things. But I don’t have a hearty emotional constitution.

I took an Ambien 2 hours ago and I’m still totally coherent. Riding the wave of wanting things to change and wanting things to stop changing all at the same time.

I had more to say, or something different to say, I can’t even remember. I’m going to go attempt to hydrate and then watch Mr. Robot or something because why not at this point.

Oh and I will add, just because I just remembered it, today was actually a pretty good day. There has been some sort of Pokemon migration and I caught a bunch of Meowths and Haunters/Gastlys and Cubones which were never around before. Ate a decent pretzel bread sandwich with my sister post-gym as we watched some fail videos of cute animals and children. Listened to the new WOR while stuffing Halloween bags and drinking a whiskey/ginger I made out of my good Jack danie’s reserve out of an insulated skippy cup for practicality. I don’t usually drink hard liquor but I treated myself. Decent episode of Project Runway tonight. If I had gotten more singing in, I would have zero complaints.

Kind of obsessed with Urban Decay’s Vice line of lipsticks. There are so many of them. I never thought “more” would be a selling point, but walking up to their display feels like walking into a candy store, with the added benefit that you can find a color you like, then be like, ‘I want that, but more sheer’ or ‘in matte finish.’ Plus they’re cheap for a Sephora brand, and they’ve got their version of a lot of the hipster colors, the lilacs, the grieges, the weird 90s Kylie Jenner mauves like this one “1993” (gotta love the honesty.)

I love the shit out of Halloween. Halloween is a bitter, passive person’s dream, a chance to feel like I am not where I am while not even having to move. Lawns become decorated, the atmosphere gets spooky, and even children become adorable and entertaining for just one night.

But I hate being scared. I don’t even like going in the laundry room during daylight, so I’m not trying to see a film that’s been jokingly insured due to threat of audience mass heart attack. Right now that sleep drug commercial with the living Zzzs and most Canadian public service ads from the mid-1990s are at the top of my shitlist for being creepy as fuck, so that’s about the level of fear tolerance I’m working with.

I still want to get in the holiday spirit. I watched Scary Movie 4 last night, and not only was it funnier than I thought the 4th of anything would be, it was more than festive enough for me. So here is my list of Halloween-y movies for people that don’t want to crap their pants.